Our Team

Mr. Porter is a member of the Kaska Nation, and spent the first seven years of his life on a trapline near Good Hope Lake, B.C. His education included Lower Post Indian Residential School, F.H. Collins Secondary School in Whitehorse, Confederation College in Thunder Bay, and Pre-Law at the University of British Columbia.

He was a founding Chairman of Northern Native Broadcasting, Yukon and was elected as Vice-Chair of the Council for Yukon Indians through two terms (1978-1982), holding several portfolios including Land Claims, Housing and Economic Development.

In 1982, Mr. Porter was elected to the Yukon Legislature and upon re-election, in 1985 he served as Deputy Premier. He held several cabinet portfolios including Renewable Resources, Tourism, Heritage and Culture, and Constitutional Devolution. After leaving the Legislature, Mr. Porter was named Executive Director of the Yukon Human Rights Commission, then Deputy Minister of Culture and Communications for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

In the 1990s Mr. Porter served as Assistant Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs in British Columbia, and as BC’s first Oil and Gas Commissioner. In 2002, Mr. Porter was elected Chair of the Kaska Dena Council followed by election to the three-member political executive of the BC First Nations Summit, in June 2004 and again in 2004.

Mr. Porter has served for many years since in the following capacities: as the CEO for the BC First Nations Energy Mining Council, founding President of the Kaska Nation’s Dena Kayeh Institute as well as a Senior Advisor and more recently as the Vice Chair of the Board of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI) a prominent national Indigenous -led conservation organization.

Mr. Porter’s unique and impressive career encompassing a wide variety of challenges and responsibilities has spanned two Territories and a Province. His voice and leadership have also been important in national discussions, and achievements on Indigenous issues. A lifetime of service in Indigenous and public institutions and organizations has been marked by a fierce passion for protecting Indigenous lands and waters especially the Boreal, mentoring young Indigenous leaders and promoting opportunities for Indigenous youth to become their best selves. As always, his contributions and energies have been anchored by his love and pride of his homeland and the Kaska Nation.

Norman brings to Dena Kayeh Institute his passion for conservation and education. He received his post-secondary education at the University of British Columbia back in the 1970s, completing a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Science, in the Faculty of Forestry, which at the time qualified him as a wildlife biologist. Between degrees, he participated in studies in the NWT to learn more about grizzly bears, polar bears, wolves and caribou. After five years of studying gyrfalcons, he worked for the Yukon Government as a biologist. For the last 30 years, Norman has expanded his views through a relationship with Kaska Dena elders. He has been entrusted as an advisor and advocates on their behalf for land conservation and the protection of Dena values. With this has come to an appreciation of the importance of Indigenous wisdom and knowledge in guiding our relationship with the land.

Along the way, Norman has tried to foster public awareness of wild things and wild places. He had a brief stint as an adjunct professor at the Yukon College. Since 1990, he has been a co-owner of Dechenla Naturalist Lodge, hosting naturalists as well as students in an ongoing Indigenous Guardian education program. As part of this land-based education, Norman developed a curriculum, focused on caribou, that was authorized by the Yukon Department of Education. More recently he has worked with a team to develop a University of Alberta credited course for land stewardship that brings indigenous worldviews and practices together with western science. Norman has also helped produce a number of caribou videos for the Kaska. In the early 1990s, he was interviewed on the television documentary series, the Nature of Things where he advocated for the inclusion of elders in guiding wildlife management. Most recently (2019), he published a natural history book – Gyrfalcon: the one who stays all winter. In November 2020, he received the Gerry Couture Stewardship Award from the Yukon Conservation Society, for outstanding personal dedication to natural resource conservation and management in the Yukon.

Brittanee is from the Wolf Clan of the Kaska Dena Nation (Liard First Nation).

Brittanee has a legal and financial background. Currently, she manages various relationships with Indigenous clients, throughout Western Canada. She is responsible for administering a wide range of Indigenous Trusts, including providing ongoing reporting, training and support to clients at the community level.

Brittanee graduated from the University of Calgary in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Indigenous Studies and a 2011 Juris Doctor Degree. She is a member of the Law Society of Alberta, the Institute of Corporate Directors, and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). In addition, she completed her Executive MBA with Smith School of Business at Queen’s in 2022.

Brittanee is a former international athlete representing Canada in Olympic freestyle wrestling, competing in over 37 countries worldwide. Her achievements include being a 2014 Commonwealth Games Silver Medalist (Glasgow, Scotland), 2008 World Championship Medalist (Tokyo, Japan), World Sport Accord Champion (Beijing, China), and World University Champion (Torino, Italy), and a two-time Olympic Alternate for Canada.